Decompress
by staceycj
Summary: Sometimes a caretaker needs someone to help them through rough patches too.  Bobby helps Dean get his head straight again after Sam goes to Stanford and John starts hunting alone.


Bobby Singer was in the middle of a six hour journey across the state to pick up Dean Winchester. Pastor Jim Murphy had put in a call to Bobby to ask his assistance in retrieving the young wayward hunter. Dean was apparently stone cold drunk in one of those holes in the wall, it's a wonder that the local health department hadn't closed them down yet, bars that most hunters liked to frequent. Those types of establishments tended to not ask any questions and those were people that hunters liked best.

Normally, a hunter drunk in a bar wasn't something that required a call to the Calvary, but Dean was holding court with the local yokels regarding the finer points of hunting, and apparently telling anyone who would listen just how fantastic of a hunter he was. You do what you do and keep it to yourself. That was hunter code. It wasn't like Dean to go against code, to go against everything his father had ever taught him.

Bobby pulled up in front of the bar that housed a drunken Dean Winchester. Sighing he roughly threw the old car into park and shut it off, and went into the bar and the sight before him startled him.

"I'm a hero." Dean slurred. "You know that?" Dean took another long drink from the glass in his hand. "I've killed things that you don't even believe in. But I'm one hell of a hero-Bobby!" Dean stood to his full height, but if Bobby hadn't heard the voice he wouldn't have believed it was Dean. The man before him wasn't the fresh faced, good looking, happy go lucky young man he had seen only months before. What was left in his wake was a bearded, tired, drunk, and dirty man that fit in quite nicely with the local riffraff, and that was something Dean had always strove to avoid.

Bobby stepped further into the bar and Dean started towards the elder hunter, lost his balance a couple of times and caught himself on chairs and tables and sometimes people as he traversed the short distance to Bobby, and his balance further wavered once he was right in front of Bobby which caused Bobby to have to catch the younger and very solid hunter.

"Everyone! This is Bobby! He's killed more evil sons of bitches than I have. Give him a round of applause." The crowd in the bar simply stared at Dean, and did not comply with his request. "Whatever." Dean mumbled and turned his attention back to Bobby. "Come on old man, have a drink with me, the people here are real obliging."

"No, son, we need to head back to my place." Bobby said as he tried not to breathe in as Dean breathed out, the stench of alcohol was so strong that if there was a spark anywhere near him it would have ignited his breath in a second.

"Hunt?" Dean slurred.

"Yeah." Bobby lied trying to induce the younger man into coming with him. Dean smiled and slapped Bobby on the chest.

"Nope!" Dean cartoonishly shook his head in the negative. "Nope! I ain't huntin' no more. No more huntin' for me." Dean giggled.

Bobby inwardly sighed. Jim had mentioned that Dean was a little on the disillusioned side, and that he might not come as easily as he normally would. "Come on son, your dad is at my pace. He's been looking for you." That perked up the drunken hunter and Dean turned unfocused eyes towards Bobby.

"Really?"

"Really." Dean grinned, downed the last of the drink that he still carried.

"Then let's get the hell out of here."

"Yeah, let's."

Dean let go of Bobby and stumbled his way to the door and then turned to the people congregated in the bar and he threw his arm up in the air and waved with his whole arm to the assembly. "Bye everyone!" He said and practically fell out of the door that required nothing more than a push to open. Bobby paid the bartender and offered an apology for his nephew and followed Dean outside.

Dean was desperately trying to get the key into the lock on the Impala. He kept missing and he would giggle and try again.

"The lock is movin'" Dean said with a laugh. "Car won't let me get in."

"Let me drive."

"No one drives my baby but me." Dean said. "She says so."

"Well, I talked to her outside earlier, and she asked if I could drive her home because you weren't feeling so well and she didn't want you to puke all over her seats." Dean's alcohol addled brain contemplated that logic, and it must have made sense somewhere in there, and he nodded and threw the keys at Bobby, which missed by almost a foot to Bobby's left. Dean giggled and swayed and stumbled his way to the other side of the car and leaned up against it waiting for Bobby to get inside to unlock the '67 beauty.

The trip back to Bobby's salvage yard took forever with Dean's slurred chatter and drunken observations, but they finally made it, with only about a day taken off of Bobby's life span.

"Don't see Dad's truck." Dean slurred.

"He's out looking for you. I called him when I found you, he should be here by the time you wake up in the morning." Drunk Dean nodded, sober Dean would have sensed the bull shit a mile down the road. But the lie allowed Bobby the time he needed to get Dean out of the car, into the house, up the stairs, and into bed—minus boots and his leather coat.

"Not tired…" Dean mumbled just as his eyes drifted closed.

Bobby let out a deep breath when Dean finally passed out. The boy in front of him was anything but the strong independent boy that he had watched grow up, this one was broken, hurt, sad and depressed. And try as Bobby Singer might, he couldn't get ahold of the boy's father. It was growing more and more difficult to get ahold of the oldest Winchester, rumor had it that the only person who could get in touch with John was Dean, and at the moment, Bobby didn't think it was a good idea to try and get the number out of the incapacitated young hunter.

Bobby sighed, ran a hand down his face, and wished, not for the first time, that the youngest Winchester hadn't cut off all contact with Dean, because right now, Sam would probably do more good to Dean than John or even Bobby himself. But Sam had made it clear, beyond clear actually, that he wanted nothing to do with anyone who was a hunter, and that included his brother.

Resigning himself to the fact that he was in fact the only person who was going to take care of Dean right now, he pulled the covers up to Dean's chest, watched him sleep for a few moments more, and then exited the room, and poured himself a stiff drink.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Dean woke up to the smell of sizzling bacon, and the desire to vomit the entire contents of his stomach up at the exact same time. He managed to make it to the toilet before his dinner from last night, hell his breakfast from last week, came violently back up.

Once his body ceased the revolt he took a moment to realize where he was, and then his head hit against the side of the sink. "Damn." He muttered.

He made it down the stairs, with only a hand on his stomach to indicate his discomfort, and Bobby was standing at the stove, with an apron that Dean and Sam had gotten him many moons ago, and a spatula in hand, flipping pancakes and taking bacon from the frying pan.

"Glad you're up. Gettin' kinda worried that I'd have to go up there and make sure you were still breathin'. Wouldn't want to have to answer to your father if you weren't." Bobby said without turning from the stove.

"Don't think he'd much notice." Dean said softly and took a seat at the kitchen table.

"You hungry?" Bobby asked, purposefully ignoring the last comment.

"Coffee. I think that's about all I can handle."

"You should have one hell of a hangover."

"You can say that again." Dean took the cup of coffee proffered with two pain killers and a bottle of water.

"Hydrate." Bobby said as Dean downed the pills dry. "The liquid ain't there as a suggestion boy." Dean nodded and drank the bottle of water in one long pull.

"Thanks." Dean said and wiped his lips with the back of the arm of his long sleeve shirt. "I'll be out of your hair as soon as I can see clearly again."

"No. Son. You are staying here until you are better."

"Shouldn't take more than an hour or so."

"I'm not talking about the hangover." Bobby said weightily as he sat down next to Dean with a plate full of steaming breakfast foods. Dean swallowed hard trying to keep the pain killers in his stomach. "You were pretty off your game last night."

"It's no big deal." Dean said and ran a hand over the beard that had grown thick in recent weeks.

"You were proclaiming yourself a hero to anyone who would listen." Dean inwardly cringed with embarrassment. "You were stumbling all over the place, going on and on about being a hunter, and what that meant. You know the rules. We don't tell the rest of the world what we are doing…we just do it and move along." Dean looked up at Bobby, eyes wide and surprised. He didn't remember a damn thing that had happened at the bar, all he remembered was going into the bar, ordering his first couple of drinks, but after that things got a little fuzzy—or rather completely nonexistent.

"Sorry." Dean said as he stared into the mug of hot black coffee.

"I ain't looking for an apology son, I'm looking for an explanation."

Dean shrugged. "Just had too much to drink."

"That ain't like you. You can hold your liquor. You must have been kicking back quite few in order for you to be that drunk."

"I'm sorry." Dean repeated.

"That ain't what I'm looking for son."

"Whatever." Dean said and stood up, closed his eyes to keep his balance and headed towards the stairs.

"Where do you think you are going young man?"

"I'm packing my crap and getting the hell out of here. I don't want to be interrogated."

"I don't care what you want boy. You told a bar full of normal people about the hunting world. You are going to have to lay low until all of us make sure that people in that town think you are nothing but a crazy son of a bitch."

"I'll just stay away from that town."

"Boy, you drive one of the most noticeable cars in the world. Trust me. There ain't many of them around, people will notice the bearded psychopath in big black muscle car."

Dean felt anger rising to his cheeks. "I don't need your permission to leave." Dean said and took the stairs two at a time. Bobby heard him stomp around the upper level to the house and then tromp down like a herd of elephants back down the stairs. He threw open the front door, exited, and threw it closed so hard that the windows rattled. Bobby continued eating his bacon, and he counted until 65 before Dean stormed back inside the house, and threw his bag so hard it sailed across the living room and crashed into a pile of books in the corner.

"What did you do to my car!"

"I arranged for it not to leave the yard for a while." Bobby said and ate another slice of bacon.

"Give it back!" Dean demanded of the part that Bobby had taken from the engine to make Dean's baby not run.

"I ain't giving you back nothin'. You need time to cool off. So you can either throw another tantrum or you can get your ass upstairs and clean you and your room up and help me with the cars in the yard, or you can sit around pacing like a caged beast. Your choice. But you ain't leavin'." Bobby stood, put his dirty dishes in the sink, wiped his hands against his jeans. "I'll be in the yard." And the back screen door slammed in Bobby's wake.

Rage washed over Dean like a familiar friend, he'd been angry a lot lately, and Dean threw the fork and knife that was lying on the counter against the door, both of which stuck inside, and when he could no longer find any projectiles, he screamed wordlessly until his voice gave out.

Bobby heard it all and sighed. He hit speed dial again on his cell, put the phone up against his ear and waited and when he got the answering machine again, he spoke. "John. It's Bobby. Your boy is here. He needs you. He's in a world of hurt. Call me." Bobby closed the phone and listened as Dean expended the last of his energy on destroying the kitchen and his vocal chords before Bobby headed to the yard.


End file.
